Half of India’s wildlife in danger of extinction: Living Planet Report 2016
With wildlife disappearing at an “unprecedented” pace across the world, the Living Planet Report 2016 identifies India as an ecological black-spot where around half of the wildlife lives in the danger of being wiped out.
With wildlife disappearing at an “unprecedented” pace across the world, the Living Planet Report 2016 identifies India as an ecological black spot where around half of the wildlife lives in the danger of being wiped out.
A one-horned rhinoceros eats corn in an open enclosure at Bengal Safari park on the outskirts of Siliguri. (AFP Photo)
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The biennial report that tracks over 14,000 vertebrate populations of over 3,700 species from across the world highlights the pressure on water and land India faces because of unsustainable human activities.
Around 70% of surface water is polluted and 60% of ground water will reach critical stage -- where it cannot be replenished -- in the next one decade, the report prepared by World Wide Fund for nature (WWF) with other research institutions said.
The biggest reason for contamination is industrial and municipal waste.
It also pointed out that one-fourth of India’s total land is facing desertification and about a third of land is getting degraded primarily because of depleting forest cover.
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“Our consumption patterns and the way we look at our natural world are constantly shaping the future of our planet…We need to come together as a global community and address the threats to biodiversity to protect our environment, as well as our economic and social structures,” said Mr. Ravi Singh, secretary general and CEO, WWF-India.
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“Our consumption patterns and the way we look at our natural world are constantly shaping the future of our planet…We need to come together as a global community and address the threats to biodiversity to protect our environment, as well as our economic and social structures,” said Mr. Ravi Singh, secretary general and CEO, WWF-India.
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The Living Planet Index showed that 58% overall decline in vertebrate population abundance between 1970 to 2012. “Population sizes of vertebrate species have, on average, dropped by more than half in little more than 40 years. The data shows an average annual decline of 2% and there is no sign yet that this rate will decrease,” the report said.
It also said that global wildlife populations could decline by an average of 67% between 1970 - 2020, as a result of human activities, it said, adding that the populations of fish, birds, mammals, amphibians and reptiles have already declined by 58% between 1970 and 2012. This places the world on a trajectory of a potential two-thirds decline within a span of the half-century ending in 2020.
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“Wildlife is disappearing within our lifetimes at an unprecedented rate,” said Dr. Marco Lambertini, International Director General, WWF. “This is not just about the wonderful species we all love; biodiversity forms the foundation of healthy forests, rivers and oceans. We have the tools to fix this problem and we need to start using them now if we are serious about preserving a living planet for our own survival and prosperity.”
Wild Asiatic elephants graze in Kaziranga national park, east of Gawahati.
Looking ahead, 2020 is also a year of great promise as commitments made under the Paris climate deal will kick in, and the first environmental actions under the globe’s new sustainable development plan will come into force.
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.
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